17-04-2025
Camper's gruesome injuries lead to warning ahead of Easter holidays: 'A lot of mistakes'
With the Easter holidays upon us and many campsites around Australia booked out, one camper's gruesome injuries have served as a timely reminder to follow basic — but effective — rules to ensure a safe and memorable trip.
Andrew Lane was only five days into a long-awaited hiking trip on the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia. He was using his long service leave and spent months planning the journey when things took a painful turn at the end of a hot day.
"I got severely dehydrated, so I ended up getting into camp and thought I felt a little bit under the weather so skolled a massive amount of water, and then made a cup of tea to make myself feel a little bit better," Andrew told Perth's 6PR.
As he was dunking the tea bag into the water, his surroundings suddenly "went black" as he passed out. When he came too, he realised four of his fingers had been "dangling" in the boiling water, and were now blistered and raw.
Incredibly, the pain didn't rouse him and he woke to find his fingers 'cooked pretty nicely'.
'They went up like some big English breakfast sausages," he said.
Andrew said he knew the damage was quite bad, but he had been planning the trip for 'months and months' and didn't want it to come to an end only five days in. He said there were other campers nearby, but he was 'embarrassed' to tell them what happened.
Using what he had with him, he ran his fingers under cold water and wrapped up his hand, and took painkillers to ease the pain.
He planned to stop in at Collie, about 40km down the trail, to see a doctor where he figured they would "pop the blisters" and he'd be on his way. But about 25km into the walk, he found some phone reception and made a call to his wife.
After seeing a photo of his blistered hand, she told him he had to stop walking and go to a hospital. He caught a cab to Collie.
On advice from Fiona Stanley Hospital, doctors at Collie Hospital cut away the blisters, cleaned the wound and dressed it properly.
'The pain at the time when I did it was not as bad as the pain of having to get it treated," Andrew said.
He admitted he made "a lot of mistakes" on his short trip, and warned fellow campers that the "most dangerous time" during a camping trip is whenever there are hot things around.
He also stressed the importance of staying hydrated and replenishing lost electrolytes.
'I was sweating all day, had really low electrolytes and then I stupidly should have taken on board some electrolytes straight away but just managed to drink a whole lot of water… and that of course thins out your electrolytes even further so yeh, I did a lot of mistakes.'
Two years on from the incident, staff at Fiona Stanley are still "keeping an eye" out for him, but Andrew feels like he's made a full recovery.
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